Hey guys, Kat here.

This is a fic that Laci and I wrote a while back that we've had just hanging out in our archives. We recently stumbled across it again, so we decided to upload it while you're waiting for the OFFF sequel.

Enjoy!

Riku was slacking off.

Xemnas, his manager, was taking the day off, meaning that Riku was supposed to be in charge for the day. As the only senior on the staff at the bookstore, he was the oldest college kid working that day.

It helped that, according to the rumor mill, Xemnas had a thing for unnaturally bright, aquamarine eyes. Riku preferred to ignore that reasoning though. He preferred to imagine he was put in charge because he was old and responsible and shit. Although he never actually did much when he was working, he had never missed a shift.

He was not doing his job that day. Instead of giving people jobs, Riku was curled up in the back corner of the store reading. He should have been straightening up shelves, but he was choosing to pick through the new arrivals to the fiction shelves.

Riku was caught up enough in reading that he failed to notice the small brunette working his way through the row.

He hadn't meant to be organizing all of the books in alphabetical order. All he had meant to do was find a book, find his sister, and leave.

However, five minutes later, Sora was doing just that. He had tried so hard to ignore it this time, but it just wasn't happening. The indents of his fingernails in his palms were proof of this. In the process of organizing the books on the shelf, he had found the book he was looking for, but he couldn't just stop now. He had to finish alphabetizing all of them before he could go back and get it.

Riku's cell rang, and he was jolted out of his literary reverie. He looked up to see a small boy standing a few feet away, looking very focused as he pulled books from their places and relocated them to other spots on the shelves. Riku frowned.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked, ignoring his phone. He didn't want some kid messing with the books. Zexion's shift was supposed to start in an hour or so, and reorganizing the shelves was his job.

Sora didn't answer the question. In fact, he acted as though he hadn't even heard it. Instead, he remained focused on the books in front of him.

Getting up from the ground where he had been sitting, Riku walked over to Sora. "Hey, you. What do you think you're doing?"

Finally finishing the shelf, Sora looked up. "They weren't in order," he replied quietly.

"Does it really matter that much?" Riku raised an eyebrow.

"They weren't in order," Sora repeated.

"That doesn't answer the question, kid."

Sora just looked at him for a moment. "Yes, it did matter."

"Why? You don't work here. It's not your job to fix it."

"It bothered me."

Riku looked at the boy strangely. "Okay..."

Shrugging, Sora went back down the shelf to where the book he needed was.

"Who even are you? I feel like I should probably be thanking you instead of questioning you."

"My name is Sora."

"Well, thank you, Sora. I'm Riku." Riku stuck out his hand to shake Sora's.

Sora looked from the hand to the book he was holding with both of his own hands. He couldn't just hold the book with one hand, and putting it back on the shelf was out of the question, so he was at a loss for what to do. "U-um..."

Riku laughed. "Just consider my hand constructively shaken. What book is that?"

"A book for school."

"Where do you go to school, if you don't mind me asking?"

"It's just one of those online ones."

Riku nodded. "That works. What subject is the book for?"

"Psychology."

"I think Zex and you would get along. He's a psych major." Riku smiled. "I can't pretend I don't see the appeal. I've always wanted to take a psych course, but it never fits into my schedule."

"I'm not majoring in it or anything."

"What is your major?" Riku asked curiously.

"I don't have one. I'm just doing bits and bats of stuff."

"That makes sense, I guess," Riku said.

Sora nodded.

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen." Sora made a face.

"That's not surprising," Riku said, smiling slightly.

"Most people think it is, actually."

"I'd probably think so, too," Riku admitted, "were it not for the fact that you are taking college courses. It doesn't necessarily guarantee that you're out of high school; I took college classes back in high school. However, if you're taking 'bits and bats', then you're clearly taking more than one. Nineteen made sense."

"Oh. How old are you?"

"Older than you," Riku said, laughing.

"Vague."

"Yup. I'm not ashamed."

Sora looked at Riku. "You can't be more than a year or two older."

"Depends on when your birthday is."

"Two weeks ago."

Riku thought for a second. "More than two, then."

"By how much?"

"I'm-"

"Sora!" a high-pitched but quiet voice called. "There you are. Did you get the book?" A small girl with dark brown hair walked up to him.

"Yeah," Sora said turning to the girl. "Where'd you get off to?"

"Just looking around. You know me," she said, looking slightly abashed. "I can't resist a store full of books."

Sora smiled slightly. "Yeah, I know."

Xion smiled back. It was just then that she noticed Riku standing there. "Oh, hello! Trust Sora to walk into a bookstore and find a person."

"I was rearranging the books again..." Sora muttered.

Xion's smile faded a bit. "Oh."

Sora shrugged.

Riku stared at the two. "Are you two siblings?"

"Yeah. Xion's my little sister."

Riku smiled. "Nice to meet you, Xion. I'm Riku."

"Hello, Riku!" Xion said, smiling brightly. "Nice to meet you."

"I'll leave you two to your browsing, then," Riku said. "I should probably actually do some work."

"Have fun?"

"Sure, we'll call it that," Riku said, grinning at Sora. Sora laughed a little.

"Are you ready to head out, Sor?" Xion asked.

"Oh, yeah, I guess."

Xion smiled. "Okay. Goodbye, Riku!"

"Goodbye," Riku said, finding himself smiling slightly. Xion's smile was infectious.

"Yeah, bye," Sora said.

"Stop by again. I work Wednesdays and weekends pretty much all day."

"Will do!"

Riku smiled and waved as the pair purchased the book and walked out onto the street.

Once they were outside, Sora looked at Xion. "Well, that was interesting."

"It was?" Xion asked.

"Yeah."

"Why interesting?"

"Well, if I had found my book half a minute quicker, I would have been fine leaving them alone, but since I didn't, I met a new person."

"How did you meet him? Did he have anything interesting to say?"

"He walked over to tell me not to mess with the books." Sora shrugged. "And then we just talked."

Xion smiled. "I like when you meet new people."

"Me too. Doesn't happen often."

"You need to get out more, Sor."

"I would if Mom would let me. You know how she is..."

Xion nodded sympathetically. She definitely knew. "Yeah. It makes me sad. You should get friends, too."

"I could just leave. I'm old enough, you know."

"You could. Mom'd flip, though. She'd probably send the police after you."

"They wouldn't be able to touch me. I'm nineteen."

"That's true," Xion said, frowning. "But I'd miss you."

"I know you would. I don't want to worry Mom either. That's why I haven't run off yet. Maybe... Maybe if one of the medicines finally works, she'll let up."

"I still don't understand why. You have OCD. It's not like you're suicidal. It's sometimes a little scary, but I still think you can have a real life." Xion looked incredibly sad.

"She worries, Xi. I think she'd worry less if I had some way to prove to her that I can take care of myself, but..." Sora shrugged. "Also think she's scared to let me try just in case something bad happens. And, honestly, I can't blame her for that. You remember how it was at first."

"Yeah, I do," Xion said quietly.

Sora was quiet for a moment. "Think I could talk her into letting me go to school in the next two months if I promised to live at home?"

"You could try."

"I've been trying...kind of."

Xion looked at him skeptically. "How can you kind of try?"

"I've been trying to convince her to let me live on campus. I think that's half the reason she keeps saying no."

"Then try without living on campus," Xion said. "You have the grades for it."

"I also triple checked that the school would take my online credits, so it's not like I'd be behind. Although, proving that would mean telling her that I'm taking those..."

Xion sighed. "You really will need to tell her eventually, Sor."

"Think she'll flip?"

"Probably. I still think you can't keep it a secret for much longer."

"I know." Sora sighed. "I fucking hate this."

"I'm sorry, Sor." Xion skipped in front of Sora, turned around, and held her arms out. "Hug?"

"Sure." Sora hugged her.

After a few seconds, Xion let go. "We'll make it work, Sor. We always do."

"Yeah."

"I love you, Sor."

"Love you too, Xi."

"Do you think bookstore guy goes to college?"

"He does," Sora said.

"How do you know?"

"Because we talked?"

"What do we know about him?" Xion was getting excited at the prospects of grilling Sora about his new friend.

"He's not a psych major, but has always wanted to take a psych course, and he's more than two years older than me, but I didn't get any specifics on that because someone decided to show up right when he was going to tell me, and yeah."

Xi grinned sheepishly. "Whoops. Sorry 'bout that, Sor."

"And that's all I know about him."

"That's not actually much."

"It was like a five minute conversation."

Xion grinned at Sora's tone. "Boring."

"You're boring."

"Yup!" Xion said entirely too happily.

"Xion."

"Yes?"

"You're not actually boring."

"Yes I ammm, silly!"

"Nope."

Xion stuck her tongue out. "Prove it."

"Um..." Sora frowned.

Xion smiled. "See! You can't."

Sora shrugged. "We should probably head home before Mom sends Vanitas after us or something."

Xion made a face. "We don't want that."

"Yeah. Especially since I don't think he'd be in a very good mood if she did."

"He's scary, Sor," Xion said quietly.

"Only when he's angry."

"He gets angry easily."

"Yeah, a bit."

Xion bit her lip. "At least Dad can keep him in check most of the time."

"Thankfully. I think Vanitas still has a grudge against me, because I'm the reason we had to move..."

"It was only a half an hour or so, though." Xion looked sad. "It wasn't a huge move."

"I know..." Sora looked sad, too. "But I guess...I don't think he got why we moved when Mom or Dad could have just driven me places. Plus, I mean, he was in his last two years of high school, and they made us all change to somewhere closer..."

"At least I was going into seventh grade, anyway. I was changing schools to the middle school no matter what. It didn't hurt me any."

"Yeah. At least there was that."

"Van is just a meanie. I mean, yeah, it sucks for him, but he should have moved on by now."

"You know how he is with grudges. He holds them for like ever."

Xion's gloomy expression started to fade. She always had trouble staying unhappy with much of anything. "I wish he'd be nicer, like you."

Sora shrugged. "I think it'd be weird if he was."

"I don't. I think it'd be nice."

"Maybe."

The two walked along, a comfortable silence developing until Sora finally asked, "What time is it?"

Checking her phone, Xion said, "5:00 PM."

"It's 5? Xi, we were supposed to be home already."

"Whoops," Xion said. "I should call to let them know we're still alive..."

"Yeah. Probably..."

Xion called up her mom, and after five minutes of pacifying the frantic woman, Xion hung up.

"She was ten minutes away from sending Van after us."

"Close call. We should definitely head back then."

"Yeah." Xion sighed. She enjoyed getting out with Sora. She hated going back to the house, mostly because he never seemed happy there.

"C'mon. Maybe we can convince Mom to let us come back tomorrow, since it'll be Sunday."

"Yay!" Xion said, beaming. "That'd be fun!"

"Yep."

The two went home, and after a few hours of calming down their mother and liberal amounts of cajoling, Xion managed to convince their mother to let them come back the day after.

[TBC]

Questions? Comments? Talk to us! We don't bite (most of the time).